Pictures in Microsoft Office.

Re-defining features & experience for graphic objects across Word, Excel & PowerPoint for touch devices

Pictures, SmartArt, Shapes, Charts are some of the graphic objects that are shared across all the products in Microsoft Office suite. With modern documents and presentations becoming more graphic, Pictures have become the most used graphic object.
As a designer for the Shared Graphic Object, I've designed the features, interface and interaction around Pictures for Office Codename Gemini (Office for Windows mobile devices- Released March 2015), Office Codename K2 (Office for Android mobile devices- Released December 2014). I've also influenced the features for Office Codename Miramar (Office for Apple mobile devices- Released January 2015)

Word splash-screen (on Windows tablet Dell Venue 8)

File picker to insert image (on Windows tablet Dell Venue 8)

Picture tab open in Word (on Windows tablet Dell Venue 8)

Picture Style Gallery callout open in Word (on Windows tablet Dell Venue 8)

Picture tab open in Word (on Windows phone Nokia Lumia 920)

Picture Style Gallery open in Word (on Windows phone Nokia Lumia 920)

Picture Style Gallery callout open in PowerPoint (on Android tab Nexus 7)

Redlines (Design Spec) for Picture Crop feature

Also, parallel to the designing for shipping, I attempted to design for newer features around pictures. Insights from the various user studies revealed that few mobile apps around pictures are so popular that their users (mostly students and young professionals) would actually go out of Office apps to get them edited. Filters topped the list of such edits. I undertook a deep-dive in the space of filters- Figured why they are popular in the touch world, what does it take to make a filter, what could be a meaningful set of filter for Office apps.
However, in the core Office is a productivity suite and there always will be specialized operations around pictures which can be undertaken only in specialized apps. Hence, the design of 3rd party app interactions evolved.

Understanding filters- Digital Filters can achieve and combine the effects achieved by Lens Filters, Camera Types, Camera Techniques, Printing Techniques, etc.

Compete Analysis of the leading apps in filter space.

Filter Usage vs Effectiveness in Instagram (The Fortune 500 Instagram Report, TrackMaven)

Lets the user focus at one point on the image.

Preset Usage in PowerPoint (Data analysis from Scrapper: Sample set of 7070 PPTs. 3603 of them had 87479 images in total.)

Steps to create a Toning/Duotoning filter in Office.

Computes the highlights and middle tones in the image then matches them with the accent colors of the theme of the presentation.

Steps to create a Vintage filter in Office.

The recommended set of filters which was arrived at after considering the needs and requirements of Office users, ongoing trends, existing usage and ease of implementation.

Launching a third party app from inside Office

User insights when assimilated, pointed out that users need the documents and presentations with pictures as a pivot. Even though styles, layouts and other formatting options exist, people find it difficult to pick the right one and find it even more difficult to mix and match. Designs around auto-suggest are being made to address it. This exploration later evolved as the "Design Ideas" feature which went live with PowerPoint 2019.

Recognition

The work was covered in
The Verge
Office Blogs

Team

Microsoft Office Shared Graphic Object UX Team. Lone designer for features around Pictures.

Role

Conceptualization, Competitive and Precedent Review, Interaction Design, Wire-framing, Design Specs